Thursday, August 02, 2007

Sick feeling watching bridge video

Growing up in New Jersey people always jokingly ask me, "what exit?"

My response was always that I didn't grow up on an exit, I grew up on a bridge.

The George Washington, to be exact, was right outside my window in Fort Lee. Crossed over it what seems like a million times. Been through a ton of tunnels and over many, many bridges in my life, as have most of you.

What a strange feeling. I just spoke to one of my nearest and dearest, Jess Myers, who lives in the Twin Cities. Everyone is his world is fine, thank god. What's insane is that he told me that he has a friend that was on the bridge literally two minutes before the crash. Scary.

Jess also said that the time the bridge fell was an hour before a Twins game and during rush hour. Odds are that more folks will be found today, but it could have been a whole lot worse.

After September 11th, it was hard to look at a bridge or tunnel and not have the worst thoughts in the back of your mind. But the kinds of thoughts of what happened last night rarely, if ever, entered my mind. Just insane that this doesn't happen more with the amount of older bridges in our country.

These are the same folks that have had a pig bring a baseball to the mound. They had Futon Alley in right field that had a futon, TV and a fridge full of beer. They used to give haircuts down the first base line and massages down the right field line.

When I went to a game there, it was Mary Tyler Moore night. The people who looked most like the TV characters won tickets to another game.

One of the many happy moments and thoughts I have from my travels in the great state of Minnesota.